If this is a Video Game…
Three Things You Can Do Today to Take Back the Controls

How this happened shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Projection 2025 was there, in black and white, months before the election. Trump denied knowing anything about it. But, yeah…Donny is a first-class, felonious, pathological liar. So why are we surprised

However, there is one element that on the surface, seemed to catch everyone off guard; the Ketamine-Charged-Gorilla-In-The-Ether that is Elon Musk along with his cyber-thugs army.

Tech Billionaires are a strange mix of ego, hubris, and an almost unquenchable thirst for proving that they are “alpha males.” I suspect this comes from years of being bullied in school, and finally being able to buy their version of super-model Barbie dolls, who are in it for the show and the dough, but not that into the “bro.”

But, the “win at any cost” ends up being a trigger for cheating, fraud, manipulation, and yes…even cheating at games. Trump (if he needs another foible to prove that he is a despicable human being), is a notorious golf cheat. There is a book written about this, along with countless anecdotal accounts of his “winning” through various means of cheating, using caddies to help him cheat, shaving scores, and even going so far as to claim “Club Championships” when he is the only entrant.

Musk, is apparently no better. At the end of January (when he was supposed to be forming his special DOGE team), was embroiled in a cheating scandal that rocked the gaming world. It seems that the richest man in the world, has nothing better to do than load up on Ketamine, and play video games, while his mega-billion dollar empire lumbers along on money taken from crypto-victims, government contracts, and businesses loaded with employees who are willing to look the other way, to attain their goals. What a life.

But now…he has something he has always wanted. TRUE power. Of course, he didn’t come by it honestly. Not even close. This is the kind of power that guys enjoy, who buy giant social media companies, and then gut them to make themselves the supreme arbiter of free speech.

There are only a handful of people who have tried this move, but none have done it so boldly, and so completely without any sense of propriety or honesty (unless you are counting dictators…Trump’s BFF list of heads of state). Yes…in no uncertain terms, what happened this week is a coup.

DOGE is nothing more than a video game to Musk. A game that he can “master” by ignoring rules (The Constitution), forethought and common sense (he is decimating the government checks and balances from within), and setting up his own rules with his own referee. And he is gaming the system illegally, with a group of Gen-Z hackers, who have promised that “things are going to get insane” as the re-write access codes, payment systems, and infiltrate government workers’ and citizen’s records. Trump is the only referee at this point…because Congress and the Supreme Court are standing on the sidelines.

How do we challenge this fustercluck of fascism? 

Speeches won’t cut it. Even posts like this have little influence. We are screaming down a silo.

Only a public outcry to eliminate this FALSE and ILLEGAL department and its Commandant, will suffice. There is no “slow and steady” with tech Oligarchs. There is only “full speed ahead, break things to see what is left” strategies that leave any sense of continuity in chaotic shambles.

But WHICH public?

If the elections did anything, it made clear just how divided and “siloed” we are as a country. The “Voted for Trump” crowd were the majority, at least during the election. So is it useless to try?

NO! There are three strategies that can help turn this ship away from the Musk-berg.

Three Things You Can Do Now to Take Back the Controls

1. Talk the the “opposition” calmly, but firmly. 
   I firmly believe that we are at a crossroads, and that Musk and Trump may have overstepped and outflanked themselves, now that the effects of the first month in power has been revealed. The way to win back a modicum of common ground, is to go through the agenda of 2025 with your own “Trumpies,” and then talk about the ramifications for the average citizen, and see if you can find agreement on your opinion.I once advocated cutting people off, who had clearly “lost their minds” in the last election. But, I now realize that this only hardens the lines with irrationality from both sides. Cutting Social Security (which is definitely part of the 2025 plan) will be a great place to start. It’s on Elon’s Hit List. It strikes close to home for the largest voting block in the country…the Boomer generation.  START THERE. Make it clear that this is serious, by asking, “Can you afford a 30% cut to your benefits?”
2. CALL THE CONGRESS- Representatives AND Senators
   Yes. The Republicans control both houses, but by a razor thin margin.  The TRUE MAGAHEADS represent around 35% of both houses. That means there is room to reach any moderates, or level-headed-haven’t-kissed-the-ring types, who will actually place COUNTRY over FEALTY. I will publish the links to their phone numbers below. EMAILS ARE USELESS.  WRITTEN LETTERS a bit more valuable. But, flooding their switchboard with calls from voters, makes an impression. DO IT DAILY until this madness stops.  Make 5-10 calls a day. Be honest. That is WAY less time a day than you spend binge-watching garbage and cable news. Just Do It!
3. Be Part of the Vocal Opposition – March, Protest, Deny and FORCE THEIR HANDS
   This is serious.  Remember when we all used to give a damn?  When we marched for civil rights? When we marched against the Vietnam War?  When we raised hell during Watergate?  This is WAY more important, because these thugs are threatening to eliminate our freedom, our rights, and our way of life. That is not hyperbole.  It is real.Worried about your investments? Your retirement? Your next trip? Your kid’s and grandkid’s futures?  THIS IS THE TIME TO GET YOUR ASSES OFF OF THE COUCH AND DO SOMETHING!Make no mistake about it.  I will say it again…THIS IS A COUP. We know of families that are being decimated by the deportations. We know about immediate family that has received the BOGUS JOB SEPARATION OFFERS to Federal Employees.  And we know that the cyber-punks who are hacking the government payment systems have said, “it’s going to be intense for a while.”It’s Real. Believe it.MUSK HAS TO GO. TRUMP NEEDS A WAKE-UP CALL.

   Our country can’t survive another 4 months of this…let alone four years. It has to end. Now.

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CONTACTING YOUR REPRESNETATIVE OR SENATOR
Contact Your US SENATORS

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CONTACTING YOUR US CONGRESS REPRESENTATIVES
The link below will take you to the Master List of all of the US Congress Representatives
CALL YOURS DAILY!
https://www.house.gov/representatives

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DETAILS FOR REACHING OUT TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES

FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING TO TURN YOUR despair INTO ACTION, here’s some advice from a high-level staffer for a Senator.

There are two things that we should be doing all the time right now. You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.

1) The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time — if they have town halls, go to them. Go to their local offices. If you’re in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the “mobile offices” that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson’s website). When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.

2) But those in-person events don’t happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.

YOU SHOULD MAKE 6 CALLS A DAY:
2 each (DC office and your local office) to your 2 Senators & your 1 Representative.

The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story — but even then it’s not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).

Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to. Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics. They’re also sorted by zip code and area code. She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it’s a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc…), it’s often closer to 11-1, and that’s recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years, Republicans have called, and Democrats haven’t.

So, when you call:

A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you’re calling about (“Hi, I’d like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please”) — local offices won’t always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don’t, that’s ok — ask for that person’s name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone. Don’t leave a message (unless the office doesn’t pick up at all — then you can — but it’s better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).

Give them your zip code. They won’t always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they’ll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.

C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. “I voted for you in the last election and I’m worried/happy/whatever” or “I’m a teacher, and I am appalled by ——-,” or “as a single mother” or “as a white, middle class woman,” or whatever.

D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don’t rattle off everything you’re concerned about — they’re figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn’t really matter — even if there’s not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It’s important that they just keep getting calls.

E) Be clear on what you want — “I’m disappointed that the Senator…” or “I want to thank the Senator for their vote on… ” or “I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because… ” Don’t leave any ambiguity.

F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you — it doesn’t matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they’re really sick of you, they’ll be gone in 6 weeks.

From experience since the election: If you hate being on the phone & feel awkward (which is a lot of people) don’t worry about it — there are a bunch of scripts (Indivisible has some, there are lots of others floating around these day). After a few days of calling, it starts to feel a lot more natural.

Put the 6 numbers in your phone (all under P – Politician.) An example is McCaskill MO, Politician McCaskill DC, Politician Blunt MO, etc., which makes it really easy to click down the list each day.
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MUSK’S HIT LIST
The dollars are the “SAVINGS” (aka cut numbers)